Friday, April 29, 2011

Ouch! that hurts

Fairly routine guy with new A Fib. Checked things over, nothing unusual, little propofol, push the button, zap. Back in sinus rhythm. Feeling fine.
20 minutes later I'm in the nursing station, doing paperwork and from his bed comes this funny nose and he bounces up off the bed - spent about 3 seconds figuring that he's joking with the nurses. But, noooooooo - the nurse had decided to clean things up getting him ready to go home, and got so efficient that she even ran the "test strip" on the defibrillator. Unfortunately, the patient (wide awake) was still attached! Apparently, the "smart" defibrillator isn't smart enough to note that it's still attached to a very awake patient.

The guy thought it was way funnier than either the nurse or I did. He apparently works as a technician doing physics labs for the high school and one of his recurring jobs is to be the guy that gets zapped by the Van de Graff generator. And, once while setting up with no one else around grabbed the electrodes on a rheostat demonstration - but had bypassed the rheostat and got the full voltage and couldn't let go until finally he had sufficient seizure activity that he got ripped free. So, he thought that being accidentally defibrillated when wide awake was pretty small potatoes compared to previous experiences and thought it was pretty funny. To quote Queen Victoria: "We are not amused."

Press Ganey, where are you when we need you?

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